Archive for the ‘Dessert’ Category

So I could go on and on about how I’ve been a fan of Bake You Happy since their very early days, but you all know that by now. The thing about this shop is that they like to introduce new items, and recently, inspired by Sprinkles, they have introduced the Cupcake Ice Cream Sandwich.

I had something similar in LA a few weeks back, and am thrilled to see I can just go down the street and around the corner to have this refreshing summer treat. Essentially you pick your cupcake and can add ice cream for a dollar more. They cut the cupcake in half, and the ice cream goes in the middle and its presented in a deep, wide cup. Grab a spoon and enlightented.

After lunch, Jason and I headed over to Bake You Happy for dessert and a little ice cream date (as is tradition). We shared a carrot cupcake (with great frosting, my goodness) and a scoop of Vanilla.

Needless to say we ate it all.

However, we go all out when we go for ice cream, so we also ordered a giant ice cream sandwich! These cookies are made at BYH and the sandwiches are frozen. So this is the perfect to-go treat, or if you have time to hang out and chit chat while it thaws out, that’s a good option. This is a nice sized quality ice cream sandwich (none of the over hyped Diddy Riese stuff). Luckily, Jason is a strong man, so he tore it in half and we happily ate. It was a good day!

This past week, I got a special recognition for my achievements at work and in the community and it was a little bittersweet because I knew that I would be accepting that award by myself that night. Luckily one of my friends also got the award so he ended up as my date, but I couldn’t help but feel some important people in my life were missing that night. So I knew that I wanted to do something to celebrate this achievement and just feel proud of myself for one night…and turns out this weekend coincided with DineLA. My boyfriend could sense how hard this whole award thing was for me, and so plans came together and he ended up taking me to The Bazaar for a special date night. We headed there hungry after watching El Bulli: Cooking in Progress earlier in the day.

I had been reading various blogs so that I would know what to expect and what dishes looked like something I would like. We ordered off the special DineLA menu, and added some other dishes as well. For DineLA you got to pick one first course, three small plates for the second course, and one dessert.

To drink, I wanted something without alcohol, but refreshing. This is what my waiter brought me. It was amazingly fruity and light…but I don’t know what it was! I meant to ask before I left, but it slipped my mind. Either way…I love ordering random non alcoholic drinks at nice places, I’m always pleasantly surprised! So good!

At this point we were a little full…but still had dessert waiting for us!

As we sat and talked about what a fantastic meal this had been, our waiter took our dessert order. We were told that when we were ready we would head over to the Patisserie to enjoy our final course of the night. I was really looking forward to seeing the Patisserie for myself! I had heard so many great things! So we left the dining room…which I’m assuming was the Blanca room.

And headed across the restaurant to an eclectic section…awesome.

We sat on a high table that we had all to ourselves as we waited for our sweets to arrive!

There was a candle in his dessert because The Bazaar knew we were celebrating a special occasion. So melt and a lovely surprise!

His pick:

Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta
Apricots and muscat gelatin

My pick:

Traditional Spanish Flan
Vanilla and fruit

I really wanted to try this, so we ordered it as an extra.

Nitro Coconut Floating Island

Passion fruit and vanilla

At some point during dessert, a man approached our table to say hi…it was so random that it took me a moment to realize it was Yeekai of CogCoffee! I’m telling you, Los Angeles isn’t that big! It was a nice surprise! And, Eleana (@pokeleana) who I know through Sharon happened to be there that night too! It was so great to meet a fellow Vampire Diaries fangirl! And the best part was that our boyfriends totally hit it off, so we’ll have to do a double date soon!

I’m glad I got to try The Bazaar last night. I had heard so much about it, and really wanted to experience it for myself. It was a great place to celebrate a special occasion because it just felt really special to me. A big thanks to my wonderful, handsome, caring, boyfriend for taking me.

Ever since I heard about Fonuts opening up in LA…I knew I wanted to check it out. I finally made it to the shop yesterday! My BF said he was more of a traditionalist when it comes to donuts…but I told him that when the ex pastry chef from The Bazaar opens up a donut shop…you have to go check it out! So we did…

We had tickets to a showing of El Bulli: Cooking in Progress so we stopped here for a quick bite beforehand. The thing about Fonuts is that the donuts aren’t fried, they are baked. There was a nice variety, and between the two of us, we orderd three donuts, and two Mexican cokes. His and Hers. Sidenote? I love Coca Cola Light! It was nice to see it at this shop!

I ordered the strawberry:

Peanut Butter and Jelly

and he had this one:

It is quite a cute shop. I love that they used the stove as a place for napkins and such. A lovely detail.

As we concluded our food day…we had one more stop to make in Beverly Hills. I had heard about Harajuku Crepe in passing but had never set out to go there. I’m in the area often, but usually my objective is Sprinkles or indulging in some shopping. Sidenote? The Coach store on Rodeo always has the best sales on shoes. You’re welcome. Moving on…

The first thing I noticed walking up to the shop was the large display window! How can that not lure you in?

I happen to love crepes very much…as a dessert. Harajuku offers a much larger variety of options for your crepe as far as batter and fillings. Two people in front of me ordered crepes full of tuna. Hmm…ok. Basically, it can be a good meal option if you are in the area.

I like my crepes with strawberries and whipped cream. And from now on, I like my crepes from Harajuku.

It was served wrapped up in thin brown paper like a cone. I loved it! Just loved it sooooo much! I’m definitely adding it to the rotation because it was so light, but full of flavor. Loved.

They happen to brew Intelligentsia, and on the way out as I threw away my napkin, I saw this. Holla! Total win!

As you know, I’m always on the hunt for lovely pastries! The current winner is Chantilly Patisserie, but I’m always open to trying new places, and that was the case with Fleur de Lys. The name (which I happen to love) had been on my mind for a while, but it wasn’t until early April when I read Tony C’s post about it, complete with visuals, that I was instantly intrigued.

Continuing on my day of indulgence (starting at Cognoscenti and leading up to the concert I had waited my whole life for) I wasn’t going to let anything or anyone ruin my day. Not that I didn’t care about what was happening, just that it had been a while since I had a fun OG food day and my spirit desperately needed some peace.

And that peace came to me at Fleur de Lys. What a lovely, simple, relaxing shop. At first I thought it would be closed, so thanks to WC for letting me know it was open an hour later on Saturday. The place was pretty empty and the pastry selections were somewhat limited. However, I had finally made it to Fleur de Lys! And it was much cuter than I thought it would be!

I remembered hearing that the croissant was epic so it was a given I would order the second to last one available.

Um. What happened? It wasn’t fluffy or light or amazing at all! I was so sad because this was the first thing I tried and was ready to cry! Oh noes! Was Fleur de Lys a victim of hype? Grr! Needless to say, I left it all uneaten.

As I thought about how this darn croissant had let me down, I tried some of the crème brulée my party had ordered. I’m not a fan of crème brulée in the first place, so imagine my surprise when I loved it! Say what? In a parallel universe, I would love the croissant and pass on the brulée…weird.

Soon my beignets arrived! They tasted freshly made and were served warm. Yeah. I ate them all. Don’t judge.

Suddenly, Fleur de Lys was looking really great again. I mean, besides the Asian ladies sitting one table over with the staring problem (seriously people, I’m brown – get over it), this was a great experience and I can’t wait to go back! Since I was coffee’d out, I had some refreshing iced tea. Nice.

I need to go back pretty soon because I didn’t have a red velvet cupcake or the mixed nuts bar that Tony commented about! Oh, and this is the outdoor seating area in the back. What a cool place to hang out!

As we were leaving, I thought it was hilarious to note the contrast between peaceful relaxing Fleur de Lys and the motel across the street. Seriously though, its not my most favorite patisserie, but it was pretty fabulous.

A really long time ago (many months), a new pastry shop opened up in the SCV. I went there and experienced a world of FAIL. I didn’t blog it, but I Yelped it. Without pictures. Wasn’t worth uploading any. So I forgot about this shop and went along with my uneventful lack of a decent pastry shop life here in the SCV. Then a couple of weeks ago, my brother Hsiawen mentioned that this same pastry shop had a new name and now they were slanging tacos. He was serious. This place now has the word “Holy” and the word “Pastries” and the word “Tacos” in the name. Trufax.

I stopped by today for some pastries and some tacos because I am on Spring Break and am yet again able to experience the City during normal business hours. During the school year I spend more time in my classroom than anywhere else! So I walk in and am met with trays of pastries. All of the little cakes were lined up just right and everything looked really…pretty. I mean it wasn’t Chantilly-pretty, but these little cakes looked so dainty. Too dainty. Basically these weren’t sloppy cake wrecks found at the grocery store. I actually wonder if they make all of these in-house. Seriously.

I ordered a cheesecake (first photo), lemon cake (above) and my classic Red Velvet cupcake. The first two were not bad. Not the best, but certainly okay. The Red Velvet cupcake, on the other hand, well…I would definitely recommend ordering something else instead. As for the tacos? Well, not yet. They’ll be adding those next month. I’ll probably be back to check that out.

When plans for this West Side Romp food crawl started to come together, it sounded like a great idea!

The first stop was Huckleberry in Santa Monica, which I had technically been to…a couple of times…but for one reason or another (long line, closing time) I had never eaten there. C chose this place for breakfast and it was a great, low key place to meet up at the beginning of the crawl. We even sat at a community table! R was the first person I met and he is definitely a cool guy and a trooper! He was running on no sleep and still came out! Oh, and he’s also very punctual. I later finally met S90 photographer extraordinaire J.

While they were in charge of ordering, R and I admired the pastries before heading over to the table. The first item to come to the table? Niman Ranch maple-bacon biscuits. These + butter = fantastic. Oh, and this was his latte:

What followed was a nice spread and selection of their best breakfast (and lunch) items. Almost like a buffet or something. 😉

Croque Madame

I don’t remember the exact name for all of these dishes, but I will say everything was pretty fabulous. This was the green eggs and ham. I’m sure Dr. Seuss never thought it could taste this good!

Duck hash. I ate the potatoes… 😉

My most favorite dish was the Niman Ranch brisket hash. Wow! BTW the hash is under all the green.

Fried Egg Sandwich

Turkey Sandwich.

We were lucky to get seated as quickly as we did, however there can be quite a wait at Huckleberry in the mornings. After we finished eating, C disapearred for a long while and came back all giddy about dessert.

Soon after, two bowls of wonderful were brought to the table. And that is when I first really caught a glimpse of just how J takes such amazing photographs using the S90.

This was bread pudding with blueberries. I’m not a big fan of bread pudding, so I was much more into the second dessert. Unicorns + Rainbows. I believe this is a seasonal trifle. The bottom line is, you can’t really go wrong at Huckleberry. Go there, explore the menu board, look at the specials, smell the pastries and order. This was the perfect setting to start off our Westside Romp food crawl. As we left, we spotted a celebrity looking a hot mess…you know, which is always a nice reminder that we live in So Cal…